Stellarscapes

Messier 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

First light image of Messier 31 from last weekend with the new QHY16200A CCD camera! This has a slightly zoomed-in perspective at this focal length. Captured with the AP130GT at f/6.3 (819mm focal length). The camera is awesome! So much chip real estate and sheer pixel count makes it a really nice paring with this refractor. Even in the FOV calculators I wasn’t expected it to frame well at this focal length but the whole disk of M31 was captured anyways. I’m still using an economic field flattener which works remarkably well for this sensor size, but I will likely need to get the dedicated AP field flattener.

5 x 180 and 1 x300 second shots for Luminance, 4 x 180 each for RGB.

M83 Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

Quick process from TSP 2014. Just 5 x 120 second images, captured with the QHY11 and Celestron RASA 11″.

This Milky Way Over the Texas Star Party time lapse spans 3.8 hours starting around midnight 5/4/2016 over the Prude Ranch’s upper star field at the Texas Star Party. Canon 60Da, 25 second shots, 10 second interval, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, ISO 2500.  There is a hint of green and magenta airglow radiating from the horizon which you can see in HD resolution. It was DARK out there!

Get Ready for the Mercury Transit May 9, 2016!

Solar Kick-Off: Telescope Tips 

If you’re into astronomy like me, you’re chomping at the bit to experience the solar eclipse coming up in August 2017.  This eclipse promises to be a truly once in a lifetime experience, with over two minutes of totality visible from a huge swath of North America. But what’s a solar astronomer to do for the next 15 months until showtime?

Fortunately, to get our fix, there’s a semi-rare opportunity to see the Solar System’s innermost planet transit the Sun on May 9, 2016. To get the best view of Mercury’s transit, a filtered telescope is essential (and by filtered, make no mistake, it MUST be a front aperture solar filter or specialized solar telescope for safe viewing!)  Filtered binoculars can pull it off, but the disk of Mercury will be a mere 12 arcseconds in diameter – it will look like a dot at best. However, you’ll easily resolve a disk with a telescope, and it will be rewarding to see that disk cross over the Solar System’s fusion powerhouse.

When magnification is involved (let’s say 60x or higher), it’s generally recommended to have a telescope that tracks. Keep in mind computerized go-tos like the NexStar SLT 127 can be aligned on the Sun during the day, which is a huge advantage for outreach events where quick tracking is essential.

Mercury transiting the Sun (sunspot on left, Mercury on right), captured November 8, 2016. © Stellarscapes.net by Bryan Cogdell

 Events like these give me a special appreciation for our Solar System’s incredibly changeable and active nature.  Here we are, able to watch our Sun slinging a planet around its mighty gravitational pull in broad daylight, in just under 7.5 hours. Setting up a telescope just before dawn and catching a glimpse of Mercury as the sun rises is a small effort for a great view, and a great way to start the work day. I hope you’ll join me.

Be sure to check back to see new images of the Mercury Transit!

Reference pages:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/catalog/MercuryCatalog.html
http://eclipsewise.com/oh/tm2016.html

Find equipment for the Mercury Transit here:
http://telescopes.net/store/solar.html

Lunt LS50T Double Stack

I am excited to have purchased a new Lunt LS50T Hydrogen-Alpha Solar Telescope at NEAF from Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope. I went for the double-stack option to narrow the bandpass to just 0.5 Angstroms.  It’s amazing how much detail this little 50mm H-Alpha scope delivers.  And since I can actually image the Sun from an otherwise non-astronomy friendly area, I can get my astro-fix in broad daylight.  Also, it seems the small aperture holds up well in poor seeing, another plus for the area near work which has horrendous seeing (5” is not uncommon).

Some of the first images I took last week were of sunspot AR2529 which was distinctly heart-shaped. I’ve added them to the Solar System Gallery.